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’cocious?”
    â€œThat’s right, baby girl, you are precocious.”
    â€œMommy,” Lacy said again as they paused halfway up the steps, “what’s ’cocious mean again?”
    â€œToo smart for your own britches but cute as a bug,” a deep voice boomed from just inside the screen door.
    Danielle smiled. “Uncle Jimmy!”
    Her uncle opened the door wide, and swept the two of them into his beefy arms, hugging them both tight, until Lacy started squirming. “You’re squishing me.”
    He eased up on his hold and chuckled. “Sorry,” he said, setting them both back on their feet, “but I’m just plum tickled that my favorite niece stopped by and brought an itty-bitty cowgirl to visit me.”
    Standing back and holding the door open wide, he ushered them inside. Danielle’s gaze swept the room. Everything looked just the same and felt like home. “So,” she said slowly, “do you have any chocolate pie?”
    Jimmy laughed and grinned down at them. “I might have baked one this morning and whipped up some cream to make it pretty… just like someone I know likes it, but I think introductions are in order first.”
    Danielle gave herself a mental head slap. “Sorry, it’s been a rough morning and a long trip.” Squatting down next to Lacy, she eased the hat from her little girl’s head and smoothed the hair off her face. “Jimmy Sullivan, I’d like to introduce you to my darling daughter, Lacy Brockway.” Straightening up, holding Lacy by the hand, she smiled. “And this is your Uncle Jimmy.”
    â€œUnca Jimmy, don’t you ’member if you baked pie?”
    â€œUncle Jimmy’s just teasing because he knows how much I love his chocolate pie.”
    â€œMy mommy bakes pies too.”
    â€œI taught her the secret to my famous piecrust when she was just about your size.” He led them into the kitchen, settling them at the oak pedestal table while he opened cabinets, gathering plates, cups, and utensils. “I could teach you too.”
    Lacy was watching Uncle Jimmy move around the sunny room like a baby bird, curious and hopeful that she’d be fed soon. “OK.” After a moment, her daughter couldn’t contain her excitement. “Are you gonna feed us pie? Do you gots any other flavors ’cept chocolate?”
    Jimmy looked over his shoulder at Danielle and the little girl perched on her lap and shook his head. “You sound just like your momma.” His sigh was heartfelt. “She was no bigger than a minute the first time I saw her.”
    Lacy grabbed her mother’s wrist and twisted it so she could see the watch Danielle always wore. Staring at the watch face, she wrinkled her nose and said, “Gosh, that’s little.”
    He agreed. “But pretty as a June bug.”
    Her daughter giggled and settled against her, relaxing. Danielle’s eyes filled and she had to blink the moisture away. She didn’t want her uncle to suspect that all was not right with her world.
    â€œI like bugs.”
    â€œWouldn’t be any grandniece of mine if you didn’t,” Jimmy said, walking over to the table with a pie in each hand. “Now then, ladies,” he rumbled, “time to decide if you want chocolate or cherry.”
    Lacy looked from one dish to the other and then up at him. “Can’t I have both?”
    â€œA woman after my own heart,” he rumbled, setting the pies in the middle of the table. “How big a piece can you eat?”
    Danielle grinned. “She can have a sliver of each.” When her uncle started slicing into the first pie, she added, “I’d like the same too, please.”
    After he served up two plates of pie and poured out two glasses of milk, he sat down across from Danielle and crossed his arms in front of his broad chest. “I’m delighted to finally meet my grandniece, and